Mobile payments continue to grow world-wide. Recent developments have included:

• Square, the North American mobile payments provider, is launching their service in Japan
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• 10% of Starbucks revenue in the US is by mobile payment (all Square based)
• Bank card association China UnionPay and the nation's largest carrier China Mobile have launched a joint mobile payments system that allows consumers with NFC (near field communication)-enabled phones to make contactless payments at participating merchants. Nine domestic banks have joined the platform that is available in most major Chinese cities, with more financial institutions and telecommunication carriers expected to join.
• electronic wallets (for mobile phones, etc.) are going nowhere at the moment:
• a good indication to this is that Osama Bedier, the head of Google Wallet, has left the company
• merchants, who have to sign up to the wallets, are too busy surviving to adopt new technology
• don't expect anything soon, but they will happen. The card companies and PayPal, and tech companies such as Google, and Apple (who have 575K registered users and their credit card details) will keep on trying as wallets will control so much purchasing power.

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Ignore mobile payments and e-wallets at your peril.